


Safeguards

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phryne spends the night at Jack's house. Jack spends the night in a chair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted an excuse to put Phryne in Jack's pajamas.

  
_“A love for good books [is] one of the best safeguards a man could have.”_   
_– Louisa May Alcott_   


Jack stirred slowly, reluctantly, towards consciousness. He registered the texture of the upholstered wing of the chair against the side of his face and the warm weight of the woolen blanket over his legs, and the smell of dust and leather and stale tea, all familiar sensations, before he was entirely awake. He had fallen asleep in his study again.

He groaned softly and shifted in his chair, taking stock of his person. He'd remembered to take off his jacket and tie this time, at least, and exchange his shoes for slippers. His waistcoat was comfortably unbuttoned, as was his collar, and there was the memory of sandwiches on his tongue, so he had been a good boy and eaten something when he'd arrived home last night, before diving into the new books he had indulged in buying, in anticipation of a quiet Saturday night, for a change. He'd been looking forward to the arrival in Australia of Baroness Orczy's "Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel", anticipating its release in the same eager frame of mind as he'd displayed when reading the first Pimpernel adventure as a boy of thirteen. There was a collection of Rilke's letters and a couple of new Zane Gray novels, and a book called "Marriage and Morals," by an English philosopher called Bertrand Russell, which had stirred up enormous controversies in America. Jack was ambivalent at best about modern notions of marriage and morality, but there was little point in pretending that those notions didn't change, or that the laws surrounding them were archaic at the best of times. It was always best to try and keep on top of modern modes of thinking, no matter how much they shocked his sturdy lapsed-Presbyterian soul, if only for a chance at keeping up with Miss Fisher... 

He opened his eyes and blinked in the dusty sunlight that trickled in around his drawn shades. Miss Fisher... "Of course," Jack groaned softly, sitting up and wincing. He twisted his head this way and that, trying to work out the kinks that sleeping in his chair (again) had given him (again) _and_ trying to work out precisely what had happened the night before. 

It had been a farce. The stake-out on the docks had been a complete waste of time, resulting in nothing but Collins getting the beginnings of a head cold, Foster spraining his ankle, and Jack becoming angrier and angrier that he had been stupid enough to trust a tip from that wharf rat Jenkins. Upon returning to the station after dropping Foster and Collins at the infirmary, he'd learned that Miss Fisher's night had been no better. Her attempt to trail a murder suspect had ended ignominiously in a refuse-filled alley, although she did have some evidence to turn in, in the form of a pair of vile hobnailed boots that did seem to present a match for the footprints at their murder scene. 

And then the night had gone from bad to worse, when Mr. Butler rang the front desk. 

_"Excuse me, Inspector, but would Miss Fisher be at the station, by chance?"_

_Jack handed the phone over and watched her tired face grow more and more dejected. "All right, Mr. B., we'll have the cleaners in first thing in the morning. And please tell Dot that I'm sure it wasn't her fault. No, I'll find some place to stay – and you both do the same! No, of course not, you’ll charge it to my account. Yes, I do insist. Yes, good night. Mr. Butler." She hung the receiver back on its hook and slowly lowered her head to the surface of the desk._

_“Trouble on the home front, Miss Fisher?”_

_“My lovely new water heater ruptured. The entire ground floor is flooded.”_

_Jack winced in sympathy. His not-so-lovely old water heater had burst the winter before. “At least it’s summer? And only the ground floor?”_

_“Tell that to my poor carpets. And my woodwork. And my upholstery.” She rubbed the back of her neck and groaned. “And now I have to go and find a hotel room on short notice on a Saturday night at the height of summer, which is something even my bank account is going to cry at...” Phryne straightened up with an air of exhausted resignation. “Oh well, it’s always something.”_

_Jack opened his mouth as if to say something, and then thought better of it. And then thought better of it again. He drew in a deep breath. “Miss Fisher, you’re welcome to spend the night at my house.”_

Her expression of sheer gratitude had lit up the dingy station waiting room, and made sleeping in the chair in his study entirely worthwhile... 

A tiny movement near the door made him look up. Phryne Fisher, her short slim body swimming in his blue cotton pajamas, hair tumbled around her sleepy heart-shaped face, hugging herself and looking, he admitted, utterly adorable. “Morning, Jack.”

“Good morning,” he said, moving to rise. 

She forestalled him by crossing the space from the door to his chair, sitting down in his lap, and pressing her lips to his, with a gentle pressure that swept away the last of his drowsiness. “Oh...” Jack gasped softly.

“Well, I had to say thank you,” Phryne pointed out, with a tender, sleepy smile. “After all, you did ride to my rescue last night, and then you wouldn’t take your reward even when it was offered to you.” She straightened his limp collar with a proprietary air. “You’ve a lovely big bed, Jack. I was practically lost in it. But you just _had_ to sit out here and read your new books.”

Jack silently thanked all the angels in heaven for making him the incorrigible bookworm that he was. “Your water heater certainly picked an unfortunate time to give up the ghost,” he said, thinking all the while how very, very good her weight felt in his lap, and how lovely and pink and soft her lips looked without the red lipstick she always wore. “I’d been looking forward to these books for weeks. Not even a beautiful woman in my bed could pry me away.”

She ran her fingers through his tousled hair, still tacky with last night’s pomade. “Is it because I was in your bed that you stayed away?” she murmured, and brushed a lock of her own hair back behind her ear, watching him intently from behind the curtain of her eyelashes. 

“I brought you to my home,” said Jack, quiet and solemn, “because you needed a place to stay. Nothing else was going to happen, because nothing else can happen, under the circumstances. It wouldn’t be right.”

Phryne nodded and slid carefully from his thighs. Jack remained where he was, rather than risk trying to stand, and was very grateful that the blanket was still in place. “I’m just going to get dressed,” she said, gesturing towards the back of the house, where the bedroom was. “Unless you’d prefer to...?”

“No, no, I, uh, need to freshen up some, first. But I’ll put the kettle on for tea.”

He watched her head down the corridor with dancing little steps, utterly at home in his house and his pajamas. Suddenly he rather regretted the safe refuge of his reading habits.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phryne spends the night at Jack's house again. Jack does **not** spend the night in a chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because y'all insisted on a follow-up. ;)

  
_He loved books; books are cold but safe friends._  
_– Victor Hugo_  


Jack didn’t want to wake up.

He was bundled up in his bed beneath soft flannel sheets and heavy woolen blankets pulled up to his chin, and there was a delicious warm presence cuddled up beside him that smelled of familiarity and safety. And the air outside that safe cocoon was cold. No, there was entirely no reason for Jack to even consider waking up, especially not with...

He cracked one bleary eye to examine the slumbering form curled against his chest. One smooth black bob, slightly rumpled. The pale slope of a forehead and the very tip of one elegant nose. One small fist, determined even in sleep, nudged up between her cheek and his pectoral muscles. And one soft pink mouth, gently warming the cloth over his bare skin with every slow measured breath.

Somehow, in some way or other, Miss Fisher had ended up spending the night at his house again, in his bed again. And this time, he’d ended up there with her.

“Phryne,” Jack whispered with an involuntary little smile. He gave in to a half-awake impulse and pulled her closer against him, drawing the blankets more tightly around them both. She let out a little sound, a tiny high sigh of contentment, but didn’t awaken.

Jack noted that she was wearing his blue pajamas again. And he had made it into pajamas as well, this time. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed by that fact. A vague wisp of a conversation from the night before tugged at his memory. _“Surely we'd be warmer if we were naked,” Phryne pointed out, all not-precisely innocent and standing in his chilly bedroom with far too few clothes on._

Carefully, not wanting to wake her, Jack rolled onto his back. Phryne followed him, her fist still clenched firmly against his sternum. She cuddled even closer, moving one slim leg over his thigh to better mold herself to his side. Jack smiled, although the slight weight of her might as well have been a tank sitting on his chest, with the way his heart felt like it might explode, and reached for the Zane Gray novel he’d left on his bedside table. There was just enough light through the drawn curtains for him to see, so he settled back against his pillow as best he could and began reading where he had left off two nights prior. 

But the book, exciting as it was, couldn’t seem to hold Jack’s interest for very long. The pages were chilly from having sat out on the bedside table all night, and Phryne... Phryne was warm. Every few minutes, Jack found his attention wandering from the remote wilds of northern California to the far more engrossing contemplation of her head on his chest. A lock of her jetty hair had fallen in front of her face, and little wisps of it moved with each light, even breath. 

It had been a very long time since Jack had spent the night in bed with a woman, and even longer since he’d felt this content and at peace with the world. He wasn’t aroused; he was too comfortable for that, though if he didn’t move soon, he was sure that state of affairs would change, and very rapidly. He felt, dare he think it, _domestic_ , which would certainly horrify the woman currently curled half-around him.

Gently, Jack brushed the hair back behind her ear, then worked his fingertips softly against her scalp. “Mmm,” Phryne hummed, and rolled her head into his palm. 

“Good morning,” Jack rumbled softly. 

“Hmm... nuh-uh.”

“It’s not a good morning?”

“Not morning.”

Jack chuckled. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Fisher, but the sun is up and the milk’s been delivered. It’s definitely morning.”

“What time is it?”

He found his wristwatch on the nightstand and squinted at it. “About half-past eight.”

Phryne lifted her head an inch or two and glared at him. “That’s _not_ morning.” She dropped back to his chest with a forceful little thud. 

“Not for you, maybe, but I’m already very late for work. And I’m not leaving you here by yourself while I labor mightily at the station.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll rifle through my things, learn all of my deepest darkest secrets, and then eat all of my biscuits.” _And probably do indecent things in my bed._

Not that he would mind Phryne Fisher doing indecent things in his bed... but he would much rather be present to witness, and perhaps even to participate. 

Phryne groaned and nuzzled her face hard into his chest, unable to dispute his assertions. “Tea,” came a muffled demand. “Tea, toast, bath.”

“Whatever Madam demands,” Jack said, with a roll of his eyes. “But you’ll have to let me go if you want breakfast in bed.”

“...We don’t have to get up _just_ yet, surely?”

She looked at him with such longing in her sleepy green eyes that Jack felt himself melting. As long as it had been since he’d slept with a woman, in any capacity, he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at him so achingly. “Well,” he said after a moment, cupping her face in his hand and brushing his thumb over her cheek, “maybe not just yet.”

The smile she gave him was the same one he had seen at the Abbotsford match that autumn, when he had draped his scarf round her neck and almost pulled her in for a kiss. He’d resisted then, because they were in public. But there was no point in being proper now. 

He curled his other hand round her shoulder and drew her up a bit, and leaned down to press his lips to hers, gently and slowly. “Mmm...” Phryne murmured, her breath warm in his mouth. “Now it’s a good morning.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is there to greet Phryne on her return home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't intended there to be a third chapter to this story, but this chapter was at the front of my brain when I woke up this morning.

Phryne stepped off the gangplank of the ship, straight into Jack’s waiting arms. They stood there on the dock, with the crowd parting awkwardly around them, and didn’t care who they inconvenienced. She nuzzled her face into his shirt collar. It smelled of shaving lotion and good cologne and was the most comforting thing to happen to her in months. 

“Welcome home,” he murmured into her hair. 

Her arms tightened around his waist, under the shield of his overcoat. “Yes,” she sighed. 

“Strangely, I seem to be the only one here to greet you,” Jack said, as they waited for the porters to bring her luggage to his car. There wasn’t much—she hadn’t been able to bring more than a change of linen on the plane out, and as Phryne had explained in one of her letters, very little of her time in London had been spared for shopping. “I would have at least expected Mrs. Collins or Dr. McMillan to be here with all flags flying.”

She smiled wanly. “I didn’t tell anyone else I was coming back today.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m tired, Jack.” She pulled off her hat and scrubbed her fingers through her hair, the same way she had the night he had said, so very seriously, that she was not a telescope. “I spent almost a solid month in the air trying not to murder my father, and then two months in London trying to help my parents sort out their financial affairs, and then a month on that steamer playing the delightful socialite when all I wanted to do was hide in my cabin and unwind. I wanted a day or two of quiet before plunging back into society.”

She let him hand her into the car and close the door. When he climbed into the driver’s side, she pulled him close for a long, slow, grateful kiss, with nothing of the repressed excitement and passion that had powered their last embrace. 

“I’m sorry you had such a difficult trip,” Jack murmured, leaning his forehead against hers and caressing her cheeks gently with his thumbs. “I’d wanted to join you in time for Christmas, but I couldn’t get away any earlier than February... and you got fed up with England long before I would have made it there.”

Phryne husked out a laugh. “But at least I made it back in time for your birthday.” She nuzzled his nose. “So? What would you like, hmm?”

Jack’s eyes were soft. “Come home with me,” he murmured, cradling her face in his hands and drinking in the sight of her. She had come back and told no one but him, and now he didn’t want to share her. Bringing Phryne to Wardlow would mean surprise and uproar and no time together. “No one expects you back yet. Stay with me tonight.”

She smiled at him, a slow and delighted thing that warmed Jack in a very different way from the mid-summer sun outside, now beginning to dip back into the ocean. “Jack Robinson,” she murmured, taking one of his palms and brushing her lips across it, “I thought you’d never ask.”

So he brought her to his home, not for the first time, but the only time thus far that he had asked, rather than offered. When he parked the car in front of the bungalow, he heard Phryne let out a little sigh. “What is it?”

“It’s strange... as much as I adore my own house, yours has become the place my mind goes to, when I need peace and quiet and security.” She squeezed his thigh lightly. “Like you, Jack.”

He brought her luggage inside and stored it in his bedroom. He had a guestroom, but Phryne had never bothered sleeping there before, and he didn’t especially want her to begin now. 

They had a late dinner, or an early supper, making do with whatever Jack had in his icebox. Cold chicken, cheddar, salad, and fresh ripe white peaches from the tree outside his kitchen door. “I _adore_ white peaches,” Phryne groaned happily, as the first warm sweet slice went down her throat. 

“So you’ve mentioned,” Jack said with a smile, reaching out to wipe a drop of clear juice from her chin. 

She caught his hand, and holding his eyes with her own, solemnly sucked the peach juice from his thumb. 

They shared whiskey in his little library, and a few soft, tentative kisses even sweeter than the fruit. “Do you want a bath before bed?” he asked, smoothing her hair with his palm. 

“Mmm... not tonight, Jack.” 

“Just bed, then?”

“Yes, please.” Phryne groaned and rubbed the back of her neck. “I feel as though I haven’t slept properly since Dot’s wedding.”

“I know the feeling,” said Jack softly. 

They undressed together in his bedroom, Phryne gazing at him with tired but apparent interest and Jack sneaking shy glances at her out of the corners of his eyes. “Do you want a set of my pajamas?” he asked, noticing that she wasn’t making any moves towards her luggage. 

“No.” She moved forward and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her lithe nude body to his naked skin. “Jack...”

“Ssh...” He caressed her shoulders. “What is it?”

“All I want tonight... is to feel you against me, while we sleep.” She looked up and smiled wryly, her green eyes sleepy but still mischievous. “I know, it’s very unlike me...”

Jack shushed her with a light kiss. “I can’t think of anything more inviting,” he murmured.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack wakes up twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, folks, this is really and truly **complete** now. I have like six other equally delightful stories I need to work on. ;)

At some point in the night, Jack woke. The warmth of the early summer night must have been particularly oppressive to either him or his bedfellow, because the light coverlet was nowhere to be found. 

There was only Phryne, lying fully stretched out atop him, fast asleep, with her head nestled under his chin and her closed fist once again resting firmly against his breastbone. 

Jack smiled sleepily and touched her hair gently. “Phryne,” he whispered. “Phryne. I need to get up.”

A long moment, and then a labored “Uh uh.”

“You have to let me up, or else things are about to get very uncomfortable.”

She let out a disappointed groan and slid from his torso. Jack made his way quickly and silently to the bathroom. 

When he returned, guiding himself back to his bed by long familiarity with the house, he found Phryne sprawled over nearly the entire mattress. An impressive feat, considering the size of her person relative to the size of his mattress. “Come on,” Jack murmured, inching his way back into his side, “share the bed, love.”

She moved obligingly to give him room, and then promptly reclaimed her spot on top of him. He was more awake now, and conscious of her soft curves and hidden warm places than he had been before. His body was suddenly paying very close attention to hers. 

“Phryne?”

“Mmm?” she replied, sounding more annoyed this time. 

“I need to get up.”

“...you jus’ got back.”

“I know, but...” She shifted to find a more comfortable position on his chest, and the movement caused her to rub against him in the most excruciatingly intimate fashion. Jack tried to bite back his sudden moan, and only caught most of it. The shadow of Phryne’s head lifted up, and though he couldn’t see her face, he could feel her looking at him and he blushed. “I think I should go. You can have the bed, I’ll just grab a blanket and...” He trailed off as her hands came up to cup his neck. 

“Jack. Do you want to go?”

“No,” he whispered, so longingly. 

She shifted again, with more intent this time. Jack let out a small hitched breath and pressed his palms to her sides. “Are you going to go?” Phryne asked, her hair falling around his face, her lips hovering above his.

“...No,” said Jack, arching his neck to kiss her. 

With a low, shuddering moan, Phryne took him inside her, and they made love just like that, with his hands clasping her waist and hers cradling his neck and head, kissing softly, barely moving, never once shifting their hands to touch and explore. They were together. Everything else seemed unimportant. 

When she clenched around him with his name on her lips, Jack was breathless. “Oh my god,” he whispered, in utter amazement. It was the closest thing to a prayer he had spoken in many a long year, but he’d never felt anything like— She was— He gasped for air and spent himself within her welcoming body. 

That was how they fell asleep, still joined together, Phryne’s soft weight anchoring him to the bed, and that was how they woke, many hours after dawn and at almost the same moment. “Good morning,” she said softly, folding her hands beneath her chin and studying him tenderly. 

“Yes,” Jack replied, his voice gruff with sleep and emotion, “yes, it is.”

Phryne smiled. “Do you know... I can’t remember the last time I slept in someone else’s bed? I make it a point not to stray too far from my own sheets. A woman of my calibre has to think of her safety.”

In all the time Jack had known this glorious woman, he couldn’t remember a time when she had _ever_ thought of her own safety. Only of other people. “And last night?”

She stroked the skin of his chest with thoughtful fingertips, and then stretched up to kiss him. “I’ve never in my life felt safer with anyone, than I do with you, Jack Robinson.”


End file.
